Dinner at Kolyat's
by Yet Another Pseudonym
Summary: Ellen Shepard finally meets the family.  Complete, finally!  Took me long enough, didn't it?  Many apologies.
1. Trepidation

Trepidation

_With massive apologies to both Deep Blue Something and Audrey Hepburn, whose movie I have yet to see._

Kolyat futzed with the human-style fabric wiping devices, the so-called "napkins," for the fiftieth time since Bailey had let him off. Early, this time, and not at his own request. No, that had been at the Commander's, and just like everyone else in the galaxy seemed to jump at her beck and call, Bailey was no exception. _What is it about this human that has everyone in an uproar? Even Father._ He remembered her well, or at least the feeling of her fist smashing into his jaw. He remembered the flickering of C-Sec warning lights reflecting in the jet-black hair as she told him Father was dying, and the strange look he'd seen in her tiny blue eyes. A weird look that said, _I've been where you are now. I understand._ It wasn't exactly the look he'd wanted to see just then, not when she and Father had destroyed the life he was trying to build.

The greens seemed more or less done on the stove—not that he could tell properly done from overdone—and he dumped them into a bowl. He'd tasted one of the poached fish-eggs earlier and it had seemed more or less adequate. Nothing quite like what you could get on Kahje, but they'd survived import well enough. Well enough for human tastes, probably. He chopped asari tuber-roots he'd baked earlier into large chunks and drizzled a little of the sauce the Zakera Café chef had recommended on top of them once he'd dished them onto three plates. _Three. The same number of plates that Mother only occasionally brought out, when Father actually bothered to show up for dinner._ He swallowed at the memory, and took a few deep breaths to try to calm his suddenly-pounding heart.

_Whatever it is that you expect from Ellen, she will likely shatter it to pieces the moment you meet her. She's nothing like I expected._

He fiddled with the napkins again, and no matter how he folded them, they seemed just as wrong as the number of plates on his tiny table. He lay the bowls at the end that bumped up against the wall. _She'll expect more than what you've scrounged._ Why that bothered him, he couldn't say, and that bothered him even more. He had enough time to set the human-style eating devices by each plate, but only just. He'd just begun to adjust his floor cushions for the fifty-first time when he heard that thin but deep voice through the surveillance bug Father had insisted he install on his last visit. _Kolyat, I've opened you up to more threats and danger by accepting this mission. Be safe and be prudent. That is all I ask._

"God, I feel like such an idiot! What if…"

"Calm yourself, Siha. Kolyat isn't a thresher maw."

"Yeah, the maw's easy. You know, you shoot it, and eventually it dies."

"I hope you don't plan to shoot my son."

"No, but I already punched him. Ohgod… What if he hates me, querido?"

If he heard her voice properly, she sounded like she was ready to flee. _Run away from me? I can't be hearing that. And what does 'querido' mean?_

"And rescued him from prison, Siha."

_That was her? How did she pull that over on Bailey?_

"Oh please, I just…"

"Yes, I know, all you did was to 'wink and nod.' You realize that Kolyat likely hears everything we say?"

"Wait, what? Ohgod… You're kidding me, right?"

His hands dropped from the floor pillows as he fought to keep his jaw firmly closed. He stared at the napkins again and fought the urge to fold them the opposite direction. _By the gods, she's frightened!_ Shouldn't that have eased his own twitching? And yet her fear forced him to the table, and the plates, and the utensils he'd probably laid out completely wrong according to human customs. He moved the "fork" to the right side of the plates, and the "knife" to the left. _I should have asked Bailey how humans do their "place setting." _

"If he heeded my advice, we're likely in range of any cameras or listening devices he installed."

"Seriously? He can hear _everything_? Oh son of a… Now he knows what an idiot I am."

_She can't be that simple-minded, can she?_

Maybe it was best to just get the inevitable over with. He rearranged the last fork and knife in what he hoped was the right way before he triggered the lock.

The hair was just as he remembered, jet black and almost meticulously in-place by human female standards, but for a strand or two that insisted on sticking out from its rounded shape. Her eyes, though, rather than the steady, almost steely blue he remembered, had widened to almost drell-like dimensions. Her cheeks had turned a brighter red than he'd remembered, and the flush bled up to her temples. She'd clenched her mouth into a straight line, but as he stared at her, she forced them open into a reasonable semblance of a smile. That didn't seem to ease the way she clutched at his ever-placid Father's hand. Her knuckles had turned almost white against her otherwise deep skin. He felt a momentary surge of pity for her as he noted Father's amused half-smile. None of this matched with her well-pressed black and white uniform or the assault rifle and pistol she'd strapped on.

"Kolyat, this is Ellen Shepard."

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry for pun… I mean, wait. Um… Hi?" She stuck out a hand and then stared at the ground, her cheeks a brilliant red.

"Come in," he said.


	2. A Place of His Own

She stammered as he shook her hand. "Sorry… I mean, I suck at this…"

"Siha, perhaps we should go inside."

"Yeah, that would be smart, wouldn't it?" She giggled and flushed again. "I'm making enough of an idiot of myself out here."

Kolyat stepped aside and let Father gesture her across the threshold. _He used to do that for Mother._ His shoulders tensed, but whether at the gesture or at the intrusion of memory, he couldn't quite determine. Part of him wanted to glare at this alien intruder, but he forced himself back. _It's not her fault that Father treats her that way. She probably doesn't even know._ Father removed his weapons, and raised an eyebrow rather than just asking where to lay them aside. That habit hadn't changed over the years, no matter how much it drove him insane.

"Over here, beside the door."

"You don't have a weapon rack?"

"I have _one_ pistol, Father. I don't need one."

The Commander removed her guns as well, and as she bent over, she hesitated. "Sorry, is this good?"

He nodded. "Do you always carry that much firepower?"

"Usually a lot more. Especially if Cerberus is going to be riding our asses."

"You didn't need so many weapons for a simple dinner, Siha."

"And yet you brought your full arsenal." She grinned at Father, though if he'd been in her shoes, he'd have stomped hard on his instep.

"I am your arm, Siha. The weapons are for your protection."

"Hypocrite!" She grabbed Father's hand and smiled wider. Now that he saw her genuine smile, he started to see just what had lured Father in.

_She doesn't take any of his guff, but she doesn't take offense at it either._

"Dinner's ready, if you're hungry, or we can sit for a while."

She stood and took a quick look around her. "Nice place!"

"I'm sorry if it's not up to your standards, Commander."

"Did I say something to offend you?" Her brows tensed and she gripped at Father's hand again.

"Kolyat!"

"I mean it; it's a beautiful place. You've made a lot of the space. It's _yours_."

"Sorry… I would have thought a ship's Commander wouldn't be comfortable in anything but the lap of luxury."

She snickered. "You've obviously never served with the Alliance. Anyway, please call me Ellen. I'm not Commander of anything anymore."

"Perhaps we should sit and speak for a few moments," Father said.

He settled easily upon the blue floor cushion. He chose the yellow cushion farthest from Father as the Commander stared at the makeshift table he'd cobbled together from spare wire and metal scrap. Maybe one day he'd be able to afford the real thing, but it worked well enough to hold Mother's meditation sculpture. She ran her hands over the wire and stared deep into the sculpture's heart. He thought it was pretty, but it never called to him the way it had seemed to entrance Mother or Father. Beauty wasn't why he'd held onto it, and had packed it in custom-made shipping foam for the trip to the Citadel.

"Querido, you never told me Kolyat was an artist."

"Some things are best left to the discovery."

"And that mysterious thing never gets old." She smiled, and at him this time. "I've never seen anything like this. The work you did with that wire…"

He'd spent hours trying to make it look presentable. Time he had, but credits, well, Bailey's stipend just barely covered food and rent.

"Have you ever thought of going into business for yourself? Because I know a few people who would kill for something like this. Not to mention me…"

She ran her fingers over the netting he'd woven to approximate the waves on Kahje, and he wondered what those bright human eyes saw. Maybe the waves would be obvious in the filigree to someone who lived near water, but humans lived just about everywhere from what he'd read. He remembered how the design had seemed to flow from his fingers, the pinch of the wires as he accidentally caught his flesh in a sloppy twist, and the weaving of the panels, four in total, that kept the four narrow strips of scrap from collapsing underneath the weight of the table's top, let alone Mother's sculpture.

"Kill for it, huh? It's just a bunch of scrap."

"Just like your apartment isn't the 'lap of luxury.' These are waves, aren't they? Kahje?"

He nodded. "You think this is 'luxury?'"

"Spend almost a decade on Alliance warships with only a locker to your name, and you'll probably agree with me. I shared a sleeping pod with two other people on every single ship I served on until the real _Normandy_. And even then the captain's cabin still felt like Anderson's until I lost the ship."

"Councilor Anderson?"

"The same. You know, even if these are waves, they still remind me of home."

"Earth?"

"Mindoir."

"One of your human colonies."

"Yeah… My family had a huge allotment, and we grew wheat and alfalfa. I remember every spring how the winds used to blow over the fields, and the immature wheat looked just like a green version of the oceans I'd seen in vids."

"You were a farmer?"

"Yeah. The sculpture's so beautiful—are those dunes?"

"As they once were on Rakhana, Siha, similar to those we saw in your Sahara desert. It is more than dunes, it is the call of the gods in our hearts, and the memory of home in our souls."

"Or, in short, a thing to stare at and listen to as you meditate."

He hadn't expected her to smile. "You don't have Thane's unique way of looking at things, hunh?"

"He talks in circles and riddles. Drives me nuts."

She laughed. "Funny, I find it kind of poetic. So this makes noise?"

He spun the half-hidden pole at the top of the center dune until it clinked against its partners on both sides. The movement set the metal to tinkling as it traveled to each of the other dunes. She watched, seemingly entranced until she closed her eyes, made a quick movement with her hands, and muttered some words in some human language his translator didn't pick up.

"Father?"

"It's Ellen's form of prayer."

"Sorry… I just… I didn't know how else to honor it." She flushed again.

"Don't bother. It's all bunk."

"I… um… All right. I just felt for a moment like I was looking at a Buddhist prayer wheel or contemplating a rosary."

_Religious, but not in the way I've heard humans usually are._ He looked at her, and back to Father, who raised his brows again. He didn't know what to make of this Ellen or her spirituality. He hadn't expected her to have a taste for art, or to appreciate things that weren't human, not from what he'd heard of her. _So that's why you're with her, Father. The religion._

_Whatever it is that you expect from Ellen, she will likely shatter it to pieces the moment you meet her._

Shattered, not really. More like exploded. With some kind of incendiary device that seemed to burn away every last bit of resistance and bitterness.

"That was Irikah's," Father said as he crouched beside her. "I spent many hours with her contemplating the mysteries of the gods and of the galaxy."

"And its aura is here. Everything centers around it, and the colors, the layout of the furnishings, everything blends to bring it into focus."

"Auras?" More bunk. "Are you both hungry?"

"I… If you want. Listen, I'm sorry I punched you, Kolyat. I…"

"It's ok. Things would be a lot worse if you hadn't."

"And I'm sorry I suck at this. I've never done this before."

"Done what, Siha?"

"You know, 'met the family.' It's kind of a big deal for humans. Thanks for inviting me."


	3. Three Plates

"Are you hungry, _Ellen_?"

Kolyat hadn't meant her name to come out with such a twist, but she flinched and Father shot him a look. Her thanks on the heels of her almost uncanny sense of why he'd decorated as he had was too much for him to accept. _Shattered, more than shattered._ The woman who babbled like an idiot outside the apartment from fear saw through him far too easily for his comfort. _And this is another thing that led Father to abandon Mother's memory._ Mother had once been every bit as perceptive, and had read Father more easily than a PDA. That he sometimes found Father more oblique than a riddle didn't ease the insult any; some human woman shouldn't have the power to decode him in ways Kolyat couldn't.

"I... I'm always hungry." She forced a smile, and half of him wanted to apologize.

"I think food would be welcome, Kolyat."

"This way." He gestured toward the tiny dining table, though it wasn't hard to miss.

"Mmm, smells wonderful," Ellen said. "Hoisin sauce? I recognize the smell of that potato-thing—asari, isn't it?"

"Potato?"

"Sorry—it's one of the Earth vegetables we raised on Mindoir. When I had a chance to try the asari equivalent, I fell in love. It's got a lot more flavor, but the texture feels like home."

He sat facing the two plates, and his little kitchen. Well, not really a kitchen. Just a stove, a small refrigeration device, and a tiny counter. Years ago, on Kahje, he'd once sat beside Mother opposite Father. Father took his seat, and she… He closed his lids and tried not to bring up the image of their last meal together, before Father…

"You all right?"

She looked down at her plate, and smiled a little as her eyes seemed to focus on the utensils. _Goddess of oceans, I screwed it up! But she's not commenting... Figures she'd learn how to read drell expressions._

"Just… memory. Sorry about your 'fork.'"

"Why are you apologizing? You went to a lot of trouble just to make me comfortable."

"Just so I know, tell me how I'm supposed to arrange things."

"The fork goes on the left, and the knife and spoons on the right." She held the fork in her right hand just as Father did. "Not that it matters."

"But you use it with the other hand."

"I never said it made sense." She grinned. "You'll find that with a lot of human stuff. Anyway, I'm pretty comfortable using a lot of different eating devices, so you really don't have to bother with this. You know, naan, chopsticks, those krogan spear-things, turian levitators…"

Father, meanwhile, chewed on a bite of ghafta greens and only the faint turning down at the corner of his lips betrayed his distaste. But would he say anything? Not Father. Never. He must have overcooked them.

"What's 'naan?'"

"An Indian flatbread, and the Afghans make a wonderful equivalent."

"What planet?"

"Earth." She smiled again, but he didn't see what she found so funny.

"Humans eat more than one way?" Then again, he'd seen the human "ramen" stand customers eating with twin sticks that they used to grab long wormlike things from a pool of broth.

"Humans have about eighty billion ways of doing anything."

"That might be an exaggeration, Siha."

"Ok, make that _fifty_ billion. The point still stands."

He tried to suppress his twitch as she brushed her head against Father's shoulder, but the shudder that ran through him as Father took her chin in one hand and kissed her cheek was far beyond his abilities. Ellen flushed and stared down at her undisturbed food. He wished she'd eat, if nothing else to get the three of them away from the plates. He'd thought that eating would make things better, but he hadn't counted on _remembering_. Father grinned at the bowl of eggs.

"You had these imported, Kolyat? Siha, these are a true Kahje delicacy."

He nodded as she blanched. Still, she dished one onto her plate even as she forced her features into impassivity.

"Keasha-fish. The hanar gather the eggs when they're almost ready to hatch."

His explanation didn't do anything to banish her greyness. If anything, the way Father crunched on the half-formed bones next to her as he spoke just made it worse. She pushed the egg onto her fork with a finger and popped it into her mouth. It was all he could do not to laugh as her jaw contorted to avoid crushing it between her teeth, though only a turian might be able to swallow the mouthful whole. Not that the turian could avoid convulsions after. She winced when he heard the egg pop and she choked the burst of liquid down. A single crunch, and he watched her throat contort as she swallowed the embryonic fish almost whole.

She dabbed at her suddenly watering eyes with a napkin. "Delicious!"

Father grinned. "You have never been a convincing liar, Siha."

She shoved a forkful of greens into her mouth, and then smiled as she chewed. After she swallowed, she grinned. "All right, now that's _fantastic_!"

He took a cautious bite. Yes, overcooked, just as Father's expression had indicated. "It's too mushy."

"But the flavor… _Dios mio_—that's home on a plate! Kind of a cross between 'charred' and 'bok choy.'"

"Burned?" So she did think they were overcooked.

He had to admit, her laugh was somewhat contagious. "It must sound the same to the translator. Chard is a red-veined green vegetable from Earth. The Hernandez family shared their yields with us. Bok choy's another vegetable we grew on Mindoir."

"But you don't like the eggs?" He'd used the last of his discretionary credits on them.

"Objectively, it tasted good, but…"

"But?" Somehow he sensed a _story_.

"But… I've never been able to stomach eggs since Dad made me try Mr. Lacan's 'balut.'"

Her face crinkled, and he laughed. "It must have been terrible if you look like that."

"Worse. Ohgod… you can't get worse than that! I'd rather eat a shipload of dextro food than ever face that nightmare again."

"What is balut, Siha?"

"You sure you want to know? It'll wreck your meal." She stared at a forkful of tuber, suddenly ashen again. She chewed and swallowed and smiled. "Damn, I'd have never thought of pairing those two things. How did you know?"

"That turian chef."

"The one who recommended that awful cheese?" Father said.

"Hm. Strange. Anyway, this is great!"

"Is someone going to tell me what 'balut' and the awful cheese are?"

"The cheese is parmesan, and it's horrible," she said. "Most humans love it, but, _dios mio_, I'd take a bucket of balut over it."

"It's a little strong." Father gave her a half-knowing smile.

"And 'balut?'"

"You're sure you want to know?" Her smile seemed every bit as enigmatic as Father's. Just what he needed, _two_ of them.

He clenched his brows and glared at her.

"All right, all right. I was just trying to save you some stomach pain." Her smile turned mischievous. "Balut's an almost-hatched chicken egg. You boil it with the half-developed chick inside, and you're supposed to eat it, bones and all. Except Mr. Lacan's batch was a little _too_ close to hatched. When Dad crunched away on his and Mom turned green, I had to swallow breakfast all over again. I managed to keep everything down until Dad spat out a _beak_. I barfed all over my plate."

"A bird?" He tried to imagine an embryonic bird; he'd seen informational vids at Zakera Café of chickens and their offspring. The image of an unfeathered crunchy thing with an inedible beak made his own gorge rise.

"Dad would have loved these eggs. Actually, if they were smashed and you told me it was sardine soup, I would have believed you. And probably loved it."

"Those half-hatched eggs…" He still couldn't get the image out of his mind.

"Maybe you'll believe me next time."

For all she reminded him of Mother, she was something else entirely. He hadn't expected humor or playfulness from a human: Bailey had always been all business, as was most of the human C-Sec staff. Father shot him a glance and an amused smile. By the gods, why did he always have to _know_ everything? Especially that the three plates didn't seem quite so unsettling anymore.


	4. Too Much in Common

"You said your father 'would have' loved the eggs. Humans live long lives. Isn't he alive?"

"Long lives?" She shook her head. "Yeah, maybe. Guess I've spent too much time with asari lately. 'She's been investigating crime scenes for three of your lifetimes…' 'Dating a krogan's not like dating a human; you just have to stick it out for a century.'"

He raised a brow, attempting a version of one of Father's most annoying expressions. Not that she seemed to care, even if Father smirked.

"Sorry. No, my family and my childhood friends are gone."

"All dead?"

Father shot him a warning look, but she just gave him a half-smile. Half that seemed to say, "It's all right," and the other half, full of wrenching sadness.

"Batarian slavers..."

"They were enslaved?"

"We fought, but… The batarians killed the Hernandez family, and Mom and Dad shielded me from an artillery shell. Not many survived free, and a lot were taken. A hell of a lot more were killed. I guess I was one of the 'lucky ones.'"

He didn't want to feel kinship with her. Not yet. And yet, he didn't have a choice. He remembered every last one of Mother's touches, every last smile of encouragement, every quiet word, and the coldness of Father's hand encompassing his, the icy wind that blew endless streams of water into his eyes, and the way the waves laughed at him as the hanar threw her desecrated body into the ocean depths. He'd fought to save Mother, but not hard enough. He sensed Ellen was not entirely at peace with her own losses, just as he still tried to cope.

"Sorry," she said. "I didn't want… Maybe we should talk about something else."

"How long ago was this?"

"Fifteen years ago… Thirteen in my own years."

He stared at her. She reminded him more and more of Father when she spoke like that. He tried not to laugh—two enigmas were a little more than he could handle at once.

She bit her lower lip and snorted. "You looked like Thane there for just a second."

"And you were just talking like Father—confusing as the land beyond the sea."

"Whether my speech is confusing or no, Ellen has just surpassed me." Father tucked her hair behind her ear with a faint smile.

"You're rubbing off on me, querido. Let's see… I was 'dead' for two years while Cerberus did its whole resurrecting thing. I still don't know how old I am—thirty-one or twenty-nine? Guess it depends on how you count."

"Sounds confusing."

"Most days, it's fine. Then I'll run into someone who doesn't know I'm alive, and then it gets a little… annoying." She launched into a falsetto that didn't really suit her. "'Remember when you saved my kitten from the geth two years ago? Why didn't you tell me you were still alive? Were you mad at me? I spent two years crying for you. Now I hate you because you're working for Cerberus.' 'Sorry, I was kind of _dead_—who the hell are you?'"

He couldn't help it when the laugh burst out. Human humor definitely had its exotic charm, and the vision of Mother's vine-wrapped body stopped haunting him as she spoke. The style of humor, mocking impressions, had always amused him. He hadn't stopped laughing for hours after he'd overheard Constable Hoya imitating Bailey.

"The messages are the worst part. I've gotten so many damned remote guilt trips, Chambers has to tie me down to check the damned things. 'No exclusive for your favorite reporter?' 'Feel guilty yet for destroying Zhu's Hope?' No, no, I don't. Just fuck off."

_That_ rumor, of the Commander completely destroying a human colony was correct, then, and it seemed Father hadn't heard it from the flickering of his lids.

"A colony." Father turned a pale green. "We worked so hard to save your people's colonies, Siha, risked our lives for them, but you destroyed an entire settlement."

"ExoGeni destroyed it, not me. They knew that the Thorian they built the colony on top of could control minds and they let the colonists suffer on purpose. We just destroyed every last living Prothean. Don't tell me there's a difference, because there isn't."

"They were innocent, Siha."

"And the Protheans who were indoctrinated weren't? I saw what happened to the possessed—they turned into mindless thralls that went berserk once we took the Thorian out."

"Then an act of mercy, though I wonder if it can be truly called such… The shadow of Mindoir tainted your actions."

He couldn't help the wave of warmth that rushed through him for her. Father had always been a little rough on Mother in understated ways he'd only grasped later, but he had never seen anything like this. Ellen seemed better equipped to deal with his crap than Mother had been, and he knew that this hadn't been the first time Father had interrogated her.

_Why did you sneak that egg, Kolyat?_

_I wanted it._

_And now your Mother won't have enough for dinner._

_Sorry, Father._

_An apology is not enough, Kolyat. If you repeat the act, the apology is worthless. You must strive to improve in all you do._

_I said I'm sorry._

_But you still behave the same way. Do you not remember your words when your Mother caught you with the…_

_Father, I'm sorry. _Though he hadn't been any longer.

"And? Feros wasn't _anything_ like Mindoir. You can remove a control chip; mind control spores are different."

"The survivor we met on Illium might tell a different story, as might the rest of the colonists if you had spared them, Siha."

"That's all well and good, but I didn't have a lot of time to lollygag and fart around when God only knew how close Saren was to unleashing galactic Armageddon. We barely got to the Citadel in time as it was. If we'd spent hours more trying to save the colonists who were _trying to kill us_, every single person at this table and on this station would be dead."

"Leave her alone, Father. You've done a few shameful things yourself."

"It's ok." She grinned. "God only knows how much stuff I've done that I'm actually ashamed of."

"I almost feel bad asking you why you pulled that favor with Bailey."

She smiled, but this time it came tinged with the same kind of sadness he'd seen when he'd asked about her family. "I couldn't stand seeing Thane in pain and I didn't want to see you hurt the way I did after Dad's death. I spent way too many years bitter and empty, doing things that I still can't forgive myself for."

"Bitter? Because of the batarians?"

She shook her head and stirred her food in circles with her fork.

"Kolyat, this isn't the best time for such questions."

"Might as well start talking about it, right? If Dad had just saved my life, I'd have gotten over it eventually, but… He shot my best friend when the batarians caught her and shoved the damned chip in her head. They'd done it wrong, and she might have either died, or 'recovered' permanently disabled. Then he saved my damned life. I couldn't be angry with him, even though I was. Furious. Damned furious. For years. And he was dead, so I couldn't just yell at him and get it all over with. Add in that I was mad at _me_ for failing to save her…"

He stared at his own half-emptied plate. _What, by the gods, do you say to that?_ He expected tears when he mustered the courage to look up, but she just wore that half-bereft smile.

"I never thanked you for what you did, Ellen. So… uh… Thanks."

"It wasn't me. Thank Thane. He's the one who told me what to do."

"You didn't have the obligation. Father did."

"I… Yes, I did. If nothing else, I had to do it for me and for Dad, just to show him that I finally understand why he did what he did. I hope he's looking down from Heaven and can maybe be a little proud of me."

Father slipped an arm about her shoulder and kissed her temple. It didn't make him flinch quite as much as he thought it should have. He really didn't want to _like_ this woman, this usurper, but he didn't have a choice. She'd done far more for him than the man who was half of his flesh. _I see why Father loves her. She does what she does because it's what she is—a protector._

"I remember… I wondered how you could seem to tell me you understood that night, even if you didn't actually say it out loud. I see it all too well now."

"Something in common, hunh? It's a damned shitty thing to have in common, though. You're dealing with it better than I did… than I have."

"Perhaps better than I have a right to expect," Father said.


	5. Catching Up

"Has Bailey been ok to you?" She watched him intently, almost the way Father observed _everything_. _She must know some involuntary drell reactions—she reads Father's subtleties too well._

"He's been good to me. Professional, but he's been better to me than I expected."

She smiled. "Good. I was a little worried, but I get the feeling he's taken you under his wing."

"Worried? Why?"

"He just never seemed comfortable with non-humans is all. But I think he likes you a lot anyway. He wrote to me about you, how he had you helping some of the poor children around the station…"

"Bailey's got me working in a program he set up for human kids."

_And only human kids._ Humans looked out for other humans all too well in Zakera from what he'd seen. He still couldn't think of Bailey as a bigot, since he treated his turian and asari constables the same way he treated the humans who worked under him. Everyone who worked with him was part of _his squad_, his people, and he'd protect any of them to the death if he had to. He'd give them advice, wanted or unwanted, whether they came to him looking for it or not. _And he had to bug me about Father. Right or wrong, he had to push._

"Do you like it?" She watched him again with that same kind of half-eerie focus.

"They're almost too smart for their own good, even if some don't show it at first. I've never seen so much energy. They run all over the place, spouting off stories, lies and the truth all in the same breath, almost like they don't know what's real and what isn't. Well, most of them. Others are quiet and like to read the books we've scrounged them. All of them like to draw and color. That makes even the rowdiest of them quiet down."

Father watched him with Ellen's focus, though she'd softened a little and grinned.

"Kids are a riot, aren't they? I get the feeling, though, that drell children are different."

"Siha, young drell have perfect recall, so any lying on their part is done with full awareness. Kolyat seemed as imaginative as the human children I've encountered, though he never confused reality with the truth of memory."

"I just remember when I was a kid that my imagination was every bit as real as, well, everything you could touch. Sometimes I liked my imagination better. You said the program's for human children, though. No other kids?"

"Bailey claims it's because humans are the 'newcomers' and haven't established themselves on Zakera yet. 'We haven't had the chance to make our own institutions yet,' he says, 'like the turians or the asari. We're still not welcome here, and the aliens do everything they can to rub it in our faces.'"

"Well, the turians…" Ellen said and then trailed off as Father shot her a look. "Never mind. Heard anything about our old friend, Talid?"

What was she going to say? Father always tried to intervene at the weirdest times. And the most irritating ones as well. He gritted his teeth and stared at his plate.

"He lost the election."

"Thank God!" She made that strange motion over her chest and then flushed as she stared down at her plate.

"I suppose he never spoke differently of humans after two of them were instrumental in saving his life," Father said.

"That's why he lost. _Someone_ made sure that C-Sec footage of the incident was released to his opponent."

"Bailey," Ellen said, and snickered. "Shame Talid never backed down from his hatred, but…"

"I can't say if it was Bailey or not. But it probably was, or someone he slipped the recording to."

"Never underestimate humans," Father said. "I find that most of them surprise me at the strangest of times."

"Humans seem all right as far as I can tell. I don't have any real problems with them, so I'm not sure why Talid would."

Ellen stirred her greens again. "A few reasons, the same way a lot of humans aren't so fond of turians. No one ever says what the real reason is, no matter how much you hear all the usual complaints."

_Might as well come out and say it. _"I've heard you didn't think much of aliens."

"'Didn't' pretty much sums it up. Guess you could say I wasn't that different from Talid not that long ago."

"Then you know what the real reason is for Talid's bigotry."

"Yeah." She smashed a chunk of tuber with her fork and squished it a few times.

She was going to make him ask. Too much like Father again. "And what's the reason?"

"You're just like Thane!" She grinned and squeezed Father's hand. "Just as persistent. Relentless, even."

He mustered all his annoyance and did his best to glare at her.

"It's easy."

"I don't get you."

"Bigotry is easy. You just look at things and people who are different from you, and instead of using your brain to overcome your fear, you just give in to it. Talid probably hates us for kicking turian tail and because a human sacrificed the Council. A lot of humans hate turians because they tried to turn Shanxi to rubble instead of trying to talk to us. Then there was the Council that treated us and every other non-Council species as inferiors. Add in the batarians who enslaved and killed so many humans, and it was a hell of a lot easier for me to hate 'aliens' instead of the criminals and butchers who tried to kill us. Luckily my own wake-up call was a lot less painful than Talid's."

"You still hate batarians?"

"Nah, not really. I hate their government, their culture, that damned caste system that enslaves the people. Most of the batarians I met on Omega seemed basically decent, just like anyone else you'd run into anywhere. Well, aside from that fucking bartender that poisoned me. But he's dead, so it doesn't really matter."

"You killed him?" Father asked.

"No. Another customer did." Her voice dropped. "_I might have had something to do with it, though._"

"How do you hate a culture, but not the people? That doesn't make sense."

"Doesn't it? I can't stand the whole concept of turian hierarchy. People are equal, and their society shouldn't assign them ranks. They should be allowed to do whatever they want to if it doesn't harm others. Still, most turians are okay in my books if they don't have a chip on their shoulder about humans. Hate the system, not the people who are subject to it and indoctrinated to accept it."

"Politicians are worthless, Siha? You have said as much more than once."

She smiled.

"Do you have a problem with human government?"

"Well, it's about the best we can do, but, yeah. The Alliance definitely has its faults, especially in abandoning human colonies. It's inefficient and bureaucratic as all hell. But at least every human citizen has a vote, which is far more than I can say for Council aristocracy."

"Even with humans mostly in charge?"

"Especially now. We should know better, but we don't."

Father's smile seemed far too placid for the madness coming out of Ellen's mouth. Without law, without government… And yet, he'd picked up a gun to shoot a politician. _Maybe she's not so wrong._

"Why should humans 'know better?'"

"Earth has been an experimental lab for just about every kind of economic system, government system, and social system you see in the galaxy now. Aristocracy doesn't work—it just results in blindness. Having the Council in human hands hasn't fixed anything."

"You sound very _human_, Siha."

"Ahem." She chewed on a chunk of tuber with her lips curled a little at the corners.

"You have an interesting perspective on things, Ellen."

"Don't listen too hard to my anti-government bullshit. I'm just a soldier." She snorted and her lips twisted up at one corner.

"And soldiers fight to defend their people's governments," Father said.

At that she grinned. "Irony. For me, it's a lifestyle."


	6. Hero

Humans ate slowly from what he could tell. He'd shared a lunch or two with some of the human constables, and endless chatting or not, he still finished long minutes ahead of them. Ellen proved no exception; she chewed away several minutes after he and Father had finished, including second helpings for each of them. Father tried to slow his chewing pace to match hers, but he still couldn't quite manage, even after a plate or two of keasha eggs. She swallowed faster and chewed with renewed vigor once Father finished his last egg and leaned back in his chair.

"Sorry," she muttered.

"Tell me, why Father?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're a galactic hero. Don't you have other options? Why Father, of all people?"

"Siha, this question seems to be a common one." Father raised an eyebrow and his lips twitched.

"Too common," she said. "Not that I'm saying anything about you asking. Really."

She flushed again, and he stammered, "I didn't m-mean to…"

"Gotcha." Her skin faded to its deep tan. "You probably don't want to hear this."

"I asked."

"I would be curious to know the reason myself, Siha, though I believe I know what you're about to say."

"I mean, you're going to hear something that'll bug you, and I don't want you to think that I don't understand your feelings."

"Just spit it out!" _Worse than Father. Much worse than Father at just saying what she wants to._

"I… All right. I admire him. A lot. He's a hero."

"What?" He didn't expect the sudden flush of heat deep in his gut. "You know what he did! You know he let Mother die!"

She reached out for his hand, but he couldn't take even the idea of her touch.

"Look, Kolyat, I'm sorry. I knew you would…"

"You're defending him!"

"No." He could feel the pain in those words.

"Kolyat, Ellen doesn't…"

"Don't _you_ say anything, Father! Don't you say a damned word!"

Father twitched but his face remained almost studiously impassive.

"He doesn't share my opinion, you know," she said. "He'll spend the rest of his life regretting what happened to you and your mother."

He glared at her and Father each in turn, but he couldn't hold the anger as his curiosity got the better of him. Ellen was definitely stranger than many of the humans he'd met, and he got the impression that most humans wouldn't exactly agree with her on most of the things she'd said. Most of the human constables secretly hailed her for her role in getting humanity a central role in galactic government, though they didn't dare say it around any of their asari, salarian or turian coworkers. He wasn't going to be the one to leak their secret feelings, either. She stared back at him and didn't falter from his glare.

"Fine, Ellen. Explain yourself."

"Did you ever ask your father who his targets were? Most, from what he told me, were _slavers_. The kind of disgusting scum that destroys families, destroys lives… destroys everything that matters. The kind of fucking _slime_ that killed Sil, killed my parents, and then laughed about it in their disgusting gargling language as we bled, as we ran, as we died. The Council didn't do shit for us even when they pushed us to colonize the Traverse. But Thane did. He saved _families_. I don't know how many hanar he saved, or how many humans by wiping out slaver rings, but it's a hell of a lot more than the old _Council_ did to help us." The longer she spoke, the louder her voice became. She sounded almost angry when she finished. "He did what _I_ wish I could have kept doing if not for all this Spectre bullshit, and what I prayed every day the damned Council would do. He took life away from those who wanted to destroy and _control_ innocents only for their fucking caste status."

"Siha, you needn't have been quite so…"

"Vehement. Yeah, sorry… Guess I got a little carried away."

"Hm."

Suddenly his ass felt like it prickled; sitting was the worst thing he could do. Or maybe not. Worse than that was meeting those brutally frank eyes of hers, the half-quirked, but trembling lips that seemed to say, _I went too far. Please forgive me._ The simple white roundness of his second-hand plates soothed him in this alien territory of partial forgiveness, partial hatred, partial loyalty… Everything partial, nothing solid. He stacked his and Father's plates together, and arranging the empty bowls on top in a small tower soothed him like a balm. _Mother would forgive her, maybe. You'd think you could be half of what she was, but you're part of __**him**__ too. Still, Mother would do a little yelling first, before the tears would start. I still don't understand why she loved him._

"Can I help you with anything?" She still hadn't finished her food.

"No."

"Right. Sorry. I mean it."

"Not now."

"I… Oh."

"Just eat. You humans take forever."

He turned away, but not before he saw Father's arms around her, his lips against her cheek.

"This was a bad idea," she said, her voice little more than a whisper. "I'm not diplomatic enough to do this right."

"Siha, the gods will what they may, and Arashu would not leave you stranded."

"Really? She did a pretty good job washing me up on my island of stupid."

He rinsed the bowls and shoved them into the washer. He didn't bother to lay them in carefully, and he didn't care if they ended up chipped or scratched. The plates followed behind with two crashes that made him wince even as he secretly enjoyed making Father flinch. And Father did flinch; he could hear the chair's faint creak. Father had always loathed sharp noises—probably a side effect of his occupation—and he'd always retreated to his study when Mother got too sick of his crap and let loose. He'd been on the receiving end more than one of Father's disapproving stares when he'd gotten a little too shrill playing with a toy, or reading one of his children's legends to Mother. The only time Father seemed to relax was during the rare moments that he'd take to "dance crazy." Those seemed to be the only times that he'd ease up and just _relax_.

"Perhaps you should ease up, Siha. You crusade well, but this may not be the best place for it."

Father telling Ellen to _relax_? He tried not to snicker as he eyed her plate over her head. She still hadn't finished eating. _How long does it take a human to eat?_

"I know, I know. Son of a bitch, I know how to make an idiot of myself, don't I?"

"Eat," Father whispered. "Kolyat will be offended if you don't finish."

"Not that I have much appetite anymore…" She likely didn't know how sensitive drell hearing was, but he had no trouble hearing her whisper.

He settled back down in front of her, but he didn't have the faintest clue what to say to her. She met his eyes, and though he saw the apology in them, she didn't back down or avert her gaze.

"Well, even if you don't think your father's a hero for what he did in the past, he helped me take down a Reaper with only a sniper rifle."

"And with the aid of biotics," Father said.

"Whatever. It may have been a baby Reaper, but considering it took a whole freaking armada to take Sovereign out, I still think it's pretty impressive." She smiled as she took a final bite. "So, there's the rest of the why."

At least she was through eating. Finally.


	7. Talk First, Think Later

Father settled her on the blue cushion, even though she gave him an almost indecipherable look. _Thought I could read humans by now._ She stared at the door as Father lowered himself and wrapped his arms around her. Those arms served as more than just protection: he seemed to both guard and cage her; he kept her locked tight so she couldn't bolt to her freedom.

_Fine, Father, keep me caged too_. So long as she couldn't leave, he was stuck. _What, by the eternal sea, was I thinking when I asked to meet her?_

He sat and waited for her or for Father to speak, but after a century or two, the silence wormed its way into his ears, and rose to a crescendo, louder even than the children's playtime he supervised.

"How long will you be here, Father?"

"However long the gods will."

"Typical."

"Kolyat, I'm unsure. Much depends on what the Council decides, and how convincing Ellen can be."

"Years," she said, her voice hollow.

Father raised a brow and a rare, real smile brightened him. "Siha, you've convinced a quarian to work with a geth. I'm sure you will succeed."

"Just keep telling yourself that." A faint smile, but nothing close to even her earliest, most awkward fumblings.

More silence. More fixed glances at the door. Father hadn't relaxed his grip on Ellen at all, and his own gaze never strayed from Kolyat. It might have been a gaze, simple and almost gentle, but it bored into his mind with the same relentlessness of Kahje's spring rains. _You want to force peace between us, don't you, Father? You won't let either of us leave until I accept her._ And for that, the stewing began. The bubbling and searing of an undigested dinner returning as acid to the back of his throat. The same burning and chewing he'd felt when he'd tried to swallow at the sight of Father looming over Talid's crouched body. Father had never held _Mother_ the way he held Ellen, with that same smug air of protectiveness he'd felt the moment Father had first teased her.

"Maybe you and Thane need some time alone," she said. "I should go."

"Siha, I've never known you to surrender so easily."

"This isn't a war, querido. Kolyat, for what it's worth, I'm really sorry for what I said. I… Mom always said, 'Think first, talk later,' but I've never been good at that."

"You're more the 'talk first' type. Figures."

"Took you this long to figure it out, hunh? Actually, I'm more 'act first.' Forget the whole talking thing. Takes too long." She gave him a rueful smile. "Not my best trait, really."

That much had been obvious from all the stories about her, but the self-reflection hadn't been. He didn't expect the sudden burst of warmth in his chest to burn away the acid in the back of his throat.

"What do you know about Mother?"

"Not much. Thane's told me a little about how he met Irikah, how he left you, how she was killed." She fidgeted in Father's grasp. A faint movement, but enough for him to know she hadn't told him everything.

"Spit it out."

"It's nothing, and I'll just piss you off all over again. That's the last thing I want to do."

Did humans have to be so damned _stubborn_? He'd gotten used to that with Bailey, and his relentless and endless pushing. _You write your dad yet? What did he say? What did you say?_

"You want me to accept your apology? Cough it up."

"Kolyat, perhaps this isn't the best…"

"Cut it out, Father. You've already shushed her once."

Father shook his head and his eyes seemed to beg Ellen not to speak. _He must've insulted Mother. Just what I'd expect from him._

"He's right," she said. "I can't."

"You're protecting him. Why is it that you don't seem to mind making _me_ mad, but you won't hurt him?"

"You think I enjoyed hurting you? Son of a… Look, most of the time I don't look before I shove my foot in my mouth, especially this time, when it made it all the way down my throat. Thane's tortured himself for _years_ for what the hanar conditioned him to do, and I guess I didn't want him to live the pain all over again."

"Tortured himself for _what_?"

"For being an assassin when the hanar forced him into it before he was old enough to make a real choice. For failing you and Irikah, and for taking vengeance. For leaving you to do it."

"Maybe he _should_ suffer, and maybe you're just making excuses for him. You're just a pale substitute for Mother, who tried to take him and make him honest."

"Koyat!"

Ellen flinched as much at Father's reprimand as she had at his accusations.

"So that's why you tried to emulate him, because you're 'honest.' Gotcha."

He reeled at her words. _Mother would never forgive you. She'd look at you with that same mournful look in her eyes that she always had when Father was around._

"What do you want from me? You're not Mother. Not even close."

She jerked as if he'd slapped her.

"Kolyat, your mother would be appalled by your words."

"And you knew Mother well, all those times you left."

"Damn," Ellen said. "I'm not trying to _be_ anything. Just a friend if you want one, and a nobody if you don't. But I'm not going to sit here and let you hurt Thane the way Irikah did. You have a right to be hurt and to be angry, but not to inflict your own wounds because you won't understand what your mother refused to accept."

"You're going to do something, hunh? Hurt me again? You've done enough already, _Ellen_."

"Siha," Father said, but whether his tone was one of warning or pleading, he couldn't tell.

"Fuck it. Your mother married an assassin, Kolyat. She knew he was an assassin from the moment they met, and she knew he had _no choice_. He was _six_. Hell, when I was six, I went to school and colored a lot, played tag, ran around like an idiot, and played vid games. She knew it, but she married him anyway. She made that choice, but couldn't live with the consequences. When Thane found out he was sick, what the hell did she say? Something about how it was the will of the gods, and that it was some kind of karmic retribution for being an assassin. What kind of bullshit is that? And because she made him hate himself for being what he was, he _believed_ her. He _still_ believes her."

She drew in a deep breath and let it out through pursed lips. He knew she expected some kind of outburst from him, but his own mind was too busy mulling over her revelation that Mother _knew_. She knew that Father was dying, but she never said a word. _Why? Why wouldn't she tell me?_ And Ellen knew she knew even if he didn't. _He_ had to find out his own damned father was dying from a complete stranger.

"Mother knew, Father?"

"Yes."

"And she never told me."

"We thought it best to wait until you were older and you could understand. My illness would not manifest for many years…"

"That doesn't excuse it!"

"I know this is a lot for you to process," Ellen said.

"Goddess of oceans, what do _you_ know about what I'm thinking?" The moment the words came out, he knew just how stupid they sounded.

"All right. I'll just…"

"I want to know why you didn't tell me yourself, Father. Why you only left that box of documents behind. Why you wanted me to only have memories, and no Mother and no you."

Ellen tried to stand but Father held her down. _Leaving now? That figures._

"No, you're staying. You've been defending him right and left, so you're going to listen and hear what he has to say. And you're going to tell me the truth, Father."

"Kolyat… Your mother… She was ashamed of what I did. Each time I went on assignment, she… I broke her heart anew, as if each time was the first. She shattered before me when I would tell her it was time to leave once more. I thought it best, once I cost her life itself, that you be kept safe and free from the taint of my sins."

"You were ashamed of what you did?"

"I have but one skill, Kolyat, and that is to take life, not to nurture it. You deserved better; the chance to grow away from the path I had been trained to follow."

"I didn't want 'better!' I wanted you!"

"I'm sorry," Ellen said.

At that moment, it didn't matter that Ellen had been nearly right about Mother's shaping of Father. Right then, it only mattered that he hated her as much as he hated Father for his weakness.

"You insulted Mother through some kind of misguided jealousy, and all you have to say is, 'Sorry?'"

"You're welcome to think that if it makes you feel better." And he hated himself for putting that note of hurt in her voice.

_Why does this have to be so damned hard?_

"Why should I think anything else? You hate her."

"I can't hate someone I know next to nothing about. I've just been where Thane has, and I know how much it hurts. The only thing I hate is what she said to him, and how it _still_ haunts him."

_Careful…_ "What are you talking about?"

"Irikah sounds like an idealist, you know, the kind of person who thinks the galaxy should be made of nothing but flowers and rainbows. It isn't, of course. It's dark and twisted and light and beautiful and confusing as all hell. But you want that vision of theirs to come true, and you want to make the galaxy that way for them. You want to be that bright, shining knight for them, but you can't, because you're just as confused as the galaxy is.

"You know what the worst feeling in the entire galaxy is? It's when someone comes up to you and pats you on the back for saving the Citadel, but all you can remember is that look of disappointment in your lover's eyes when you didn't save it with the right number of bunnies and kittens. There's nothing worse than knowing you can never be what they want, or do what they expect of you, because it just isn't in you. It's not their fault, and it's not your fault. But it kills you both inside."

He felt the hurt in her words and he imagined Mother's look of disappointment at his own inability to forgive her. This wasn't an old hurt, as Father's had been, or Mother's, tempered by time, and scabbed over after it had been reopened over and over and over again. _Disappointment. Maybe she's right. Maybe they hurt each other, instead of Father destroying her all over again._

"This sounds recent."

"Yeah. A little _too_ recent for my tastes."

"Why aren't you with him?"

"It's a long story, but… Well, Cerberus was the last straw for him. It didn't matter that I didn't have a choice if we were going to stop the Collectors, and it didn't matter if I'd rather be shot in the head than talk to the Illusive Man ever again. Not that I blame him. He apologized later and wanted to pick things up where they left off once the Collectors were gone, but I couldn't keep hurting both of us even if I wanted to."

"Hm. If it just hurts you both, why stay? Father?"

"You seem to believe that I agree with Ellen."

"You don't?"

"Your mother awoke me, Kolyat. I saw that there was far more to life than just killing."

"Because you _have_ to stay. What drives you the craziest and hurts you the most is what you love the most in them. And you see their vision and their hopes for what they are: something better than what you've got. You want the galaxy to work the way they want it to, and you'd do anything to try to make it happen."

"Mother was… Well, she was a lot like you think. She could inspire, and she was the kindest person I've ever known. The most forgiving. I wish I could be like her. She…"

"She'd be honored by your love and your loyalty," Ellen said.

"I doubt it. I'm less than she was."

"And that's what's so damned annoying about idealists. You think you'll never be good enough to live up to what you think is their perfection. They might think you are, but you'll never allow yourself to believe it when you do something that doesn't fit with their picture of the galaxy. There's nothing wrong with you, Kolyat, and nothing wrong with your father."

"'You must strive to improve in everything you do.' Father said that to me."

"He's got a streak of the idealist in him too, but he's had to be more pragmatic because of what the hanar did to him."

"The hanar did nothing but honor me, Siha."

"See how I can piss off _anyone_ without even trying?" A small laugh. "Anyway, if you'll accept it now, I'm really sorry."

"I guess so." It felt far too easy to smile at her.

"Good enough for me." She hadn't smiled at all for far too long, and it warmed him more than he wanted to admit. "Just remember this about Irikah and everyone else who clings to ideals no matter how the galaxy tries to prove them wrong: if we didn't have them, the galaxy would be a dark, horrible place, the kind of place you'd want the Reapers to obliterate."


	8. Wheels Grind

…_she will likely shatter it to pieces…_

She'd definitely done that, even though she was as solid and gritty as Zakera Ward itself. Mother hadn't been so different; Father had been the one who seemed to float above everyone on some ethereal plane. Well, solid and gritty for the most part, aside from her weird human prayer, and her ability to understand what Father talked about. Mother hadn't been so different that way, either. She'd been a rock when Father had left him drifting in a sea of grief every time he'd left. _And she sank that way too, into Kahje's endless ocean, nothing more than a heavy dinner for the fish, before he left for good._ He rubbed his eyes as they burned and hoped he could shove yet another endless torrent of tears back in before they escaped.

He caught Ellen's sneaky tracery as he looked up; she pulled her hand away from Father's chest when she noticed him watching.

"You don't have to stop doing that, you know."

"This whole thing's got to be weird for you. I didn't want to push…"

"It's better Father has someone who loves him, right?"

"You ok?"

Was he? He wasn't dying, even if his head reeled with everything. _Mother was a goddess. A real, solid, goddess brought to the galaxy._ Except he knew she wasn't, even if his memories told him otherwise.

"I don't know. Memories…"

She nodded and shot a look at Father. _I bet he remembered things, all right._

"Tell me something— what's it like to forget?"

She stared at him for a moment, her eyes boring into his soul. "It's not like you think. The stuff you want to forget, you usually don't, but it's hard to hold onto the things you want to remember."

"That… sucks."

"Pretty much. You know what I wish I could remember? Dad's bedtime stories, Mom's 'good morning' song. All the crazy toasts Mr. Hernandez came up with when we'd celebrate Nan's anniversary. You know what I actually remember? The damned gun going off in Dad's hand, Mr. and Mrs. Hernandez mauled by bullets, Sil falling in front of me… Mom's last scream as the rocks fell on her."

"I take it back. That _really_ sucks."

She grinned. "I remember one of my teachers talking about why humans remember the way we do. Supposedly, we evolved to remember all the shitty stuff because it helped us survive being hunted by saber tooth tigers or something."

"Perhaps perfect memory is a gift, then," Father said. "I've wondered otherwise many times."

"Not for me," Ellen muttered.

Father raised an eyebrow, but she gave him a saccharine and sarcastic smile. She stroked Father's hand, letting her fingers play over his. _Exploring_ them with almost every bit of her attention.

"Sidonis," Father said with a small chuckle.

"Dee-yos mee-yo," she said, but still smiled. "Surprised you didn't mention the rachni instead."

_Damn inside jokes!_

"Father?"

"Ellen refers to a few of my inquiries as 'interrogations.' I'll speak to you of them later, if you don't mind, Siha."

Her smile widened.

Father's interrogations—how he remembered them. Mother had called them "lectures," but he never thought that word quite fit. Lectures involved scolding, not endless questions to ferret out hidden motives. _Mother_ had been the lecturer, especially when he'd moan about Father's disquiet ruining the peace of their home.

"More like torture," Ellen said. "I think even the most ruthless questioner stops to take a break after an hour or two."

"Some things never change," he said. "Why do you put up with it?"

She winked at Father. "Because, hidden in the barrage is love."

"What?"

"You think he'd waste his time if he didn't give a damn? I always get the feeling that he's trying to spare me the same kind of pain he's suffered by trying to make me understand what he's learned."

"Pretty hypocritical, if you ask me."

She shook her head.

"What does a hero have to learn from _him_?"

"A lot."

"Sure you do."

"Yeah, I do, even if you don't believe me."

"Like what?"

"Like how to release practicality every once in a while to do what's actually _right_. How to face your demons and win. How to keep hoping when it seems like the entire galaxy is falling apart around you. How to look at your own people with fresh eyes, rather than taking them for granted."

"Face your demons? Father's just great at that, isn't he?"

"Better than I am. He's here, right? You're not so bad at it either. Me, I suck. And I mean, _really_ suck."

"Kolyat," Father said. "Why did you seek to follow my path?"

Why had he? He still didn't know. The documents had called to the gaping hole inside him that too much memory had suck out. _He went off chasing evil_, he'd thought as he'd shuffled through endless messages, endless notes of Father's. _Maybe I can have him back, just a little._ He hadn't thought of much else as he'd blackmailed Mouse into finding a contract, aside from a sneaking suspicion that Father's only motives in leaving hadn't been to save the galaxy from evil after all. No, it had been something completely ignoble, even if killing people like Talid might have done some good.

"Not now, Father. Can't we talk about something else?"

"This pains you. I have nothing to offer but an ear if you should wish it, Kolyat."

"I said, I'm sick of it. All of it. The pain, everything."

"Another wheel," Ellen said. "Time to break it."

Father's smile at her inane—or was it insane?— comment took him aback. "You speak Arashu's wisdom, Siha, with Amonkira's insight."

"You're going to explain that. Right?" He really didn't want to hear more of Father's pontification on the "Wheel of Fire" nonsense, but it was better than not knowing what the hell they were talking about.

"Life moves in cycles, Kolyat, as does the galaxy. Seasons change as planets rotate about the stars. Life rises and falls in an endless chain of birth and death…"

"Can it, Father!"

Father's amused smile made his stomach twist and he clenched a fist behind his pillow where he hoped Father couldn't see it. He glared at Ellen, also, who seemed to struggle to contain her smile. _Great, she understands his sense of humor, and shares it. Wonderful._

"All I'm saying is that you hurt, Thane hurts, and what you've both suffered just keeps repeating and building on itself."

"A wheel, Kolyat. Ellen has spoken of the human wheel of suffering that hearkens much to the Wheel of Fire. It must be possible to break the cycle somehow, though I have as of yet to figure out how."

She shrugged. "Don't ask me. My own wheel fucked up the galaxy pretty good, didn't it?"

"Maybe."

_Apologies for the references to the "Wheels" chapter of __  
_


	9. A Chaotic Commission

Considering what was said was the last thing he was in the mood to do. He'd already done too much thinking and his hands itched to sketch the outlines of a new project, to envision the play of a thin strand of wire against a thicker frame. A spiral, maybe, or the hint of a nebula in the larger galaxy. Kahje, or maybe some other planet, one he'd never heard of. A little extranet research couldn't hurt… Maybe a hanging sculpture, though his ceiling was too low for that to be practical. Or a wall piece—the walls were too damned bare and grey for his tastes. With the last of his creds gone, he'd have to wait for next month's stipend.

Ellen watched him as he emerged from his thoughts, but Father wore a knowing grin. _Why does he always seem to know everything?_

"Sorry," she said.

"Why?"

"I just thought, well… I'm not the best at this, so I figured I offended you again."

"Kolyat was in a sort of a meditation, Siha. Irikah called it his 'art trance.'"

He expected her to flinch, not to smile at the mention of Mother's name.

"You really love it, don't you?"

"Love what?"

"Creating things. I thought I felt something more than just skill in your table."

He nodded, but had no idea what to say to the rest of her comment.

"I know I asked earlier, but have you ever thought of starting a business?"

"Selling what I make?"

"Yeah."

"I haven't really been thinking about art, or business. Just trying to get through."

Her lips twitched a little. "I think we all are. How long do you have left with Bailey?"

"A year."

"That's a long time."

"Far less than prison would have been, Siha."

Right, the debt thing. Just what he needed to think of right then. Ellen shifted and stared down at Father's hands, her cheeks flushed. She tapped one foot and shifted while Father still kept her prisoner. _She doesn't want to think of it either._ A blip and she covered her ear. _A call. Now. She's a Commander of something or other, but couldn't it wait?_

"The Council, Kelly? Now? They always had the gift of timing, hunh?"

"Is there news, Siha? Have they reviewed your evidence?"

She shook her head. "Tell the Commander to meet Garrus at… He's busy with Tali?... Well, finally, damn! … Hey, have Kasumi meet Kaidan at the Normandy, and Kaidan can pick me up… Right, thanks, Kelly."

"Chambers, and the thief," Father said. His voice dripped as much disapproval as he'd ever allow himself to show.

"I had an idea. So sue me."

"Of what possible use is the thief, Siha?"

"As an escort, of course. Garrus is busy—he and Tali are actually spending a little time in the Dark Star. Alone." She grinned. "I always knew they'd eventually hook up."

Father smiled. "And so your endless prodding brought forth fruit. There is no greater force to be reckoned with than my Siha."

"Well, we'll see how the meal turns out. There'd better be some dirt when I get back, though."

"And nothing about the Council?" He'd heard enough stories of sentient machines and their insectoid, mutated servants to fuel his nightmares for years.

"Not yet. They want to see both me and Kaidan, so, who knows? Anderson can play things close to the vest when he really wants to. Whatever it is, it has to be big for the Council to still be in session."

He half-laughed but he didn't feel any more at ease. He'd only slowly gotten used to the idea that Father was telling him the truth about the Reapers and the Protheans and oceans-only-knew what else lay out there waiting to prey on the galaxy. Maybe it was better to deny Father's reality—and Ellen's—if only to sleep at night. Father seemed more or less all right with it, so he might as well adjust too. _But he won't be alive when they come_. And that was something else he damned well didn't want to think about, either.

"Why a thief?" Easier to ask that question than all the others that plagued him.

"You'll see." It was that damned infuriating tone that Father frequently used. _Birds of a feather flock together_. A human truth, evidently.

"It will be pleasant to see Kaidan again," Father said and Ellen grinned.

"Father?"

"Later, Kolyat. Siha, I won't be accompanying you to the Council session. I have much to discuss with Kolyat."

"Gossip, querido?"

The door chimed just as he was starting to process these new people and their entanglements. Father had never mentioned this "Kasumi" and from his tone it was fairly clear why. _Father only allows lawbreaking when he does it. Woe to anyone else who dares._ When he opened the door, the Alliance soldier wasn't the one who took him by surprise.

"So, you're the illusive Kolyat," the hooded woman said, her asari-inspired lip stripe twitching. "He doesn't look anything like you, Thane."

"I… No. He resembles Irikah more."

"Anyway, nice to meet you." The woman stuck her hand out without even the faintest hint of hesitation. "I'm Kasumi Goto."

"A thief?" He shook her hand anyway, as human manners would dictate.

"Well, I was. I'm off the grid now."

The soldier stood still and looked over _everything_ as this Kasumi bubbled and gushed over the pillows, the kitchen, the "cuteness" of his rooms, until she stopped dead still in front of Mother's sculpture. While she babbled, he watched the this Kaidan as his otherwise unremarkable eyes settled on Ellen and Father. But mostly Ellen as she stood.

"Ell…"

"Hey, Kaidan! Kolyat, this is the man I turned to most on the original _Normandy_."

The man's eyes raked her from top to bottom and though they remained almost unfocused and half-dreaming, the lips underneath curled into a scowl.

"You're wearing _that_."

"What?" Ellen seemed honestly mystified.

"A _Cerberus_ dress uniform. To talk to the Council. Are you crazy?"

Ellen shook her head. "I don't see why they'd be scared of a tail-less cartoon sperm."

Father slipped his arm around her and smiled. "I thought it seemed more a virus than a sperm, Siha."

"You know, you're right. And it's a lot more a propos too. Anyway, Kaidan, this is Kolyat."

"You're ducking, Ell."

"Fuck's sake," she muttered.

"I think Shep needs to wear that little party number I got her." The thief crouched down next to the sculpture and stared at it. "I think this is the first drell art I've ever seen."

"Take a look at what it's sitting on for a sec, hunh? I'd like to get your appraisal on it."

The table? Why? Was the thief some kind of art critic or something? Or was she going to take it?

"It's nothing. Just something I put together from scraps."

"Wait, you _made_ this? Shep, you didn't tell me I was going to meet an artist!"

"Not the sculpture. Just the table-thing."

"Eh. The sculpture I can take or leave, but this… If I had to guess, I'd put it about 1500 credits. If it was made out of something sturdier, probably two to three thousand. At least."

_Fifteen hundred credits for some wire and metal scraps? Goddess of oceans!_

"Right, gotcha. Get me your PDA, Kolyat."

"What? Why?"

"Ell, the Council's waiting."

"Yeah, and they can wait a little longer. I want you to make me something, Kolyat. Two thousand credits enough? I want that table. Or if not the table, whatever you feel like making."

_Huh? Two thousand credits? Six months' rent?_

"It's just a bunch of scrap. I can't afford anything else."

"Right, a bunch of scrap. Well, then give me the table, and make something sturdier, if you really want. And do what you want with the rest. If you want to start a business, invest it, otherwise spend it on whatever the hell you want."

"I…"

He stood slack-jawed at the rest of the madness that swirled around him. Debates about contacts and whatever, potential markets, endless complaining about Cerberus uniforms, Father's own disbelief as she transferred the credits…

"You're changing once we get back to the _Normandy_, aren't you Ell?"

"Why bother?"

"You'll look great in that little cocktail number, Shep. Do it! You know you want to."

"She looks like nothing more than shadow in that dress, though she is quite spectacular where the dress leaves her bare," Father said.

"Tell me you have other clothes, Ell. For God's sake, tell me you do."

"Right. First thing when we docked, I went clothes shopping just to make you feel better. Not negotiating new fuel contracts, or preparing a report for the Council, or juggling a ship's worth of shore leaves, or replenishing our food stocks, or…"

"This is important."

The Alliance soldier was really starting to get on his nerves and he wondered why Ellen didn't just hit him upside the head.

"Whatever. Are you going to say hello to Kolyat or not?"

"Right, right. I… um… I'm sorry." The man fumbled and looked a little perplexed once. He put out a hand. "You're Kolyat? I'm Kaidan Alenko."

"Nice to meet you," he said, even if he didn't really mean it.

"Just a little stressed out with the Council waiting. I thought Ell would be ready by now."

"Dios mio, you come in here, spewing like a thresher maw, and you expect… Never mind. Just forget it."

"Because you're wearing _that_. You know that any association with Cerberus is considered treason."

She knelt in front of the statue and did her weird human prayer thing again.

"We don't have time for stupid prayers, Ell."

"Do me a favor, Kolyat: make me something new. This table… Well, you can tell it was made with love."

"You should still go for the dress. It's so much more feminine than those stupid overalls you've been wearing."

"I will," he said as she stood. She saw him too clearly, maybe.

Father beamed at her and then at him. He wasn't expecting that look of pride to do anything at all to him—he'd thought he was far beyond wanting Father's approval—but he still felt a flush of warmth at the base of his spine that radiated slowly through him. The soldier stared at all of them in turn and muttered something under his breath, but his gaze never broke for long from Ellen. Only as she grinned, did he finally realize what all the idiocy was around him. Whatever was wrong with Kaidan, it was the same thing that had made losing Father so hard all those years ago. The thief's endless hints, Father's smile when he looked on Ellen, all of those things were reflections of that same thread that bound them all. The same thread he wove into those waves, and that remained in memory. Love, in all its ridiculous forms.

"Siha," Father said, and she went right to him, even as the thief advised wardrobe changes and the Alliance soldier tapped his foot.

Father took her in his arms and stared into her eyes as she slid her arms around his waist. "Siha, maybe your hardsuit might be a better choice."

"I… um…" She flushed bright red. "Maybe…"

Father lifted her and kissed her in ways he'd never seen him kiss Mother. She seemed to go soft and limp in his arms and when Father let her down, she tottered.

"Right… Hardsuit…"

"How the hell did you do that?" Kaidan asked.

"Persuasion often accomplishes what more combative means cannot. Consider it a lesson in true diplomacy." Father raised a brow. "A pleasurable lesson."

She stumbled toward the door and reached for her weapons. "Right, well… I guess I'll see you all later."

"Ellen?"

"Yeah?"

He put an arm around her shoulders, and then, as the impulse took him, hugged her outright. She stared up at him, her eyes wide, but then she smiled and squeezed him back.

"Thanks," she said.

"You're thanking me? You're the one who just bought some wire for six months of rent."

"For putting up with me, especially with all this bullshit. For welcoming me. I'm glad I got the chance to actually meet you. Sucks it got cut short, though."

"It actually does. But isn't family supposed to put up with this stuff?"

She grinned and patted him on the back. "Pretty much."

She holstered her weapons.

"An assault rifle, Ell? Overkill much?"

"Is that rat bastard Udina going to be there?"

"Probably."

"Then, no. I'm also taking the particle beam."

"Ellen!"

She raised an eyebrow.

"See you later."

Father smiled fully as she grinned. "Yeah, later then."


	10. A Little Peace

Things seemed a little too quiet with Ellen gone, though Kasumi more than made up for it with more chatter. Chatter that had Father glaring more than once.

"I get why Shep says what she says about your hands, Thane. You're an artist with a sniper rifle, and your son creates magic from trash."

"Father?"

"Kolyat, I would ignore Ms. Goto if you wish to keep your sanity."

"I know when I'm not wanted," the thief said, and shimmered out of sight.

Father went to the door and sealed it. Locked it. Added an encryption layer to the lockout protocol. He'd seen crazy old human door-closing contraptions called "knobs" in an ancient "horror" vid Constable Tsai had recommended him. If his door had such a thing attached, Father would have shoved a chair underneath it to barricade it shut.

"I think it's locked enough, Father."

"One can never be too sure with Ms. Goto around."

"You don't like her, do you?" Father settled back on his cushion, and his grimace answered the question better than most words would. "Why not?"

"She hides herself and eavesdrops on things that do not concern her."

"She could be here right now. I didn't see her once she did that cloaking thing."

"The modifications the hanar performed upon my body were good for many things, Kolyat, not the least of which is detecting those who would hide using _tech_."

His own cushion felt oddly comforting underneath him, not lumpy it usually did.

"Ellen has some interesting friends."

Father smiled. "A peculiar talent of hers. I have as yet to understand how she manages to tolerate so many _differing_ individuals, especially those like Ms. Goto. I'm pleased you like her."

He nodded. "I wasn't expecting to, but she sneaks up on you. I get the feeling that she has more of a connection to that Alliance soldier than she let on."

"One might say that. Kaidan is the 'idealist' she spoke of."

"And you let her wander off with him?"

"I know Ellen's heart." Father's voice remained dead calm though the offense was easy enough to see in the set of his brows. "My time is short, Kolyat. Ellen will need all the aid she can find when Kalahira finally claims me. If that help comes in the form of the love Kaidan still holds, who am I to deny it to her?"

He swallowed. That was the last thing he wanted to think of. "Do you ever wish you'd met Ellen instead of Mother? It seems like she suits you better than Mother ever did." Not that the second thought was something he wanted to think either.

"Never. I loved—_love_—Irikah, and she gave me the greatest gift anyone could. A gift Ellen could not."

"What's that?" Though he guessed, even if Father's actions hadn't exactly been proof of it.

"You, Kolyat."

"And you tell me this _now_, when, 'my time is short?'"

"We've already discussed this. Know that I can never atone for what I've done in the time I have left. All I can…"

"And there's _nothing_ that anyone can do? This isn't fair!" _I thought I was done crying, but the oceans will have their way._

Father closed both lids. "I didn't wish to offer you false hope."

"Someone is doing something, aren't they?"

"The hanar have been working on a treatment for my illness for several years, though progress has been slow. Ellen has our salarian doctor working day and night, and from what she's told me, he has obtained permission to review the work the hanar have done."

"Then there's a chance…"

"False hope is worse than no hope. I wouldn't cling to it, just as one must not cling to land when the time comes to release one's hold."

"You're just giving up."

"No. Ellen awakened me again, as your mother once did. If Mordin's research bears fruit, I'll accept whatever transplants the _Normandy_'s doctor may obtain. Ellen would move the galaxy for those she loves, and I cannot deny her wishes, or her gifts."

A slim chance was better than nothing. "I guess I'll have to put my faith in her and the salarian."

"It's better to accept the worst and then appreciate the blessing if the gods see fit to bestow it."

"Father…"

"I love you, Kolyat."

"I know." But knowing didn't clear his blurred vision.

He squeezed both sets of lids shut and tensed his brows as a set of cool arms surrounded him. _He's screamed and shed too many tears. His eyes burn, and his throat aches. He's watched a bundle of leaves and rocks sink into an endless wet abyss, to be devoured by unseen fish. He shuts the door and curls himself into a ball on the floor. _Kolyat_, the voice of failure says, and arms squeeze him as he struggles. They tighten as kelp and pull as if loaded with stones._ This time, the arms felt welcome. Familiar. He wished that they had never left him, as Mother had, and as Father had for far too long.

"What is it that you will sculpt for Ellen?" Father's lips brushed his cheek and wetness followed.

In those moments when the arms last held him so tightly, Father had tried to distract him. _You will have plenty of time to relive the memory, Kolyat. I found your favorite song if you wish to dance._

"She likes grass, doesn't she? That colony of hers—I need to watch a few extranet vids."

"No need. Ellen has a few vids her father made."

"You've seen the colony? What's it like?"

"The land and the home were not what was most important, Kolyat. I've never seen such love as Ellen's father had for her mother."

"No, I guess it isn't. Father…" He couldn't force those three words out, to echo the way he'd spoken them before Father had left him.

He opened his eyes and slipped his arms around Father.

"I know, Kolyat."


End file.
